The city was burning
by sci-fi.is.my.life
Summary: Roxas wakes up from a coma to find a cat called Fluffy, new neighbours, free concert tickets and an annoying red head. AkuRoku. Rated T


The city was burning and all I could think of was marshmallows

Pairing: Akuroku

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy I just borrow the characters and return them when they're good and traumatised.

Every fibre of my being ached with need to be stretched and moved. It was worse than that itch you just can't reach no matter how far you twist. Slowly I blinked open my eyes, the light burnt.

I looked around my room. Overly white, clinical feel, check, really uncomfortable beds, check, machine that beeps a lot, check, IV needle in hand, cheek-a-bloody-roo. Conclusion, hospital. Lovely.

A snuffle at the end of my bed alerted me to another presence and judging by the spikes of brown hair it was my brother.

"Sora. Sora, wake up." He sat up and blinked blearily

"Wha? Oh My God, Roxas! You're awake" I ground my teeth at the sound of his voice. I guess my ears weren't use to noise yet.

"Oh My God! What should I do? Should I get the doctor? The nurse?"

I noticed that he was having a small panic attack. I decided it was best to intervene before he got too freaked out.  
"Sora, get the doctor" Without another word he was out the door like the hypo, Sora coloured blur he was. After half a minute of blissful, blissful silence, he was back dragging a doctor in blue scrubs after him.

The doctor looked over at me then at the clipboard attached onto my bed.

"So, Roxas, you're awake."

"Indeed I am your powers of observation astound me" If he couldn't hear the sarcasm lacing my voice, he was too stupid to be anywhere near a hospital.

"Ok, alive and semi-normal as well"

"Yep"

"Could you tell me why you're here?"

"I was brought in for . . . Shit" I'd jumped off the clock tower. Again. I really have to find a more effective way of committing suicide.

"So you remember, this means you haven't suffered any brain damage. Now do you know how long you've been in here?"

"Well, judging my need to stretch I'd say over a week." He shook his head

"Longer"

"A fortnight?"

"Keep going"

"A month"

"Almost"

"2 months" Sora chose this moment to add his input.

"You've been here for 2 months, a week and 6 days" My eyebrows shot up

"Oh, well, that's a lot longer than I thought. You've been here all this time?"

He shook his head and his spikes bobbled along as well

"No I stay here 3 days a week though, I would have but my gallery went crazy and I had to go back, sorry"

"Don't be. I wouldn't want you to put your life on hold for me."

The doctor who up until now had been silent during our exchange decided to intervene. Man we had more interventions than a . . . well I don't know what but I'll think about it.

"I think its time for me to call Aerith" Sora looked startled, he'd obviously forgotten that the doctor was here.

"Ok" He looked me straight in the eye as if trying to figure out the deep dark and quite probably damaged depths of my mind. I mentally scoffed, good luck to him.

"My name's Dr Saix by the way."

"Nice to meet you Saix, first name I assume." He grinned

"How'd you know?"

"Just made sense to me that you would call yourself a doctor but put your first name instead of your last." The grin faltered" I bet you also really like wolves" The grin disappeared off his face and transferred to mine. I was grinning like a fucking loon. _Was_ I a lunatic now? I mean who tries, and fails, to commit suicide twice? I sighed.

"You're good"

"I know" The grin started to reappear on his face again I scowled, damn.

"And modest too"

"Well if it comes naturally flaunt it"

"Fair point"

There was a moment of silence; I broke his gaze to look over at Sora who at this stage was looking quite confused by our exchange. Poor hair-brained (at times), older brother. When I looked back Saix was playing around on his pager that you see all doctors wearing. He met my gaze and quirked an eyebrow. I raised one in response. He just smirked and shook his head. I leant back into my bed, now raised up a bit so I wasn't lying down, more reclining. I looked out the window at the courtyard about three floors down, yeah, shot guys, put the kid who jumped off a building to try and kill himself by jumping off a building three storeys up. I looked more closely at the window itself and realised there were locks that looked pretty secure, but I could probably get out if I wanted to. Surprisingly I didn't.

"She's going to see you in quarter of an hour. You ok with that?"

"Yep, sure."

"Cool, are you going to want a wheelchair or are you going to try and walk"

"Try and walk" Saix grinned and shook his head at my stubbornness.

"Living up to form I see."  
"What?"  
"Dr Aerith told me all about you and your ability to refuse all help no matter how much pain you are in"  
"Sounds about right, I don't like relying on others"  
"Makes you feel weak and vulnerable, huh?"  
"Yeah, how'd you know?"  
"Suffer from the same, I don't like accepting help, yet I work here where people rely on me to save their lives."  
"Sounds like you rely on them for you sense of self esteem making you actually rely on others for your happiness, seems like a bit of a catch 22 if you ask me"

"I think you and I will get along just fine, Roxas" I hummed

"Time to go" Thus began my long and painful ordeal to get to Dr A's office. I'd always called her Dr A ever since I'd been sent here by my mother and father when I was 9, I'd been seeing her on and off for almost 10 years now.

When we finally arrived at her office which was, like, over the other side of the hospital Aerith was there seated and waiting for us.

As Sora and I took our seats she thanked Saix for accompanying us here and dismissed him

"See you around Roxas."

"Yeah yeah" Aerith looked at me quizzically. Probably because I'd never really been overtly friendly with anyone other than her in all of my previous trips to the hospital.

"So Roxas, you jumped again"  
"Yep, sure did, got caught by the awning again too. That's why I'm here and not all burnt up in a little silver urn"  
"I see your sense of humour is still intact."  
"Sure is, one thing that never lets me down"  
"Or never lets people see the real you" I shrugged

"Whatever floats your boat" She noted something down on her little pad.

"Now I think that we should start up our weekly appointments and see how we go from there"  
"Ok sounds good. I can go then?"  
"Yes I just need to sign this and you are free to go" I mentally leapt for joy at the thought of getting out of this hospital even though I'd only been aware that I was here for less than an hour, it still brought back memories I'd rather forget. She handed over the bits of paper to Sora and we slowly made our way back to my room where we were met by Saix with a box of my stuff.

"Hello again, Roxas."

"Heya, Saix"

"I'll just leave your stuff on the bed so you can get changed and then meet you at the desk so we can get you signed out, ok?"  
"Ok" I was getting a little sick of everyone always reassuring me and asking for my approval of routines I'd been through before.

I sat down heavily on the bed and got dressed as fast as my underused muscles would allow. I pulled out my black backpack from its customary place under the bed and quickly packed away all my stuff. There wasn't that much there which I was grateful for, the faster I got out of here the better.

As Sora and I walked down to the desk and handed over my release forms cabin fever started to take a serious hold. We were given clearance to go and a warning that the press had found out that I was being released. Apparently there were hoards of them just waiting to ambush us. I sighed I didn't even get why they hounded us so much it's not like we've ever done anything to be famous, my siblings and I that is, our parents were both famous film stars when they were younger.

Just before we stepped into the lift Sora handed me a pair of black sunglasses. I nodded my thanks and slipped them on. Our descent to the ground floor was spent in silence, a small 'bing' announced our arrival. I took a deep breath and prepared to run for it, Sora did the same. The doors opened. Flashes were going off everywhere, making me glad for the sunnies

"Roxas, why'd you do it Roxas!"

"Roxas where are you going"

"Roxas we just want to talk to you"  
"Roxas!"  
Three ginormous( I know I'm shorter than normal but these guys were HUGE) security guards manhandled us to the waiting limo. Sora and I scrambled in and slammed the door.

"That was a mission and a half." He laughed

"Yeah, nothing's changed much has it"

"You'll be surprised"

I wondered what he meant but it was clear that he wasn't going to say anymore.

The sounds of car horns filled the oppressing silence in the car. I looked out at the city flying past the window. Nobody looked at our limo, they all just kept moving on with their lives. They didn't care about anything that was happening to anyone else. The city itself still looked the same, same traffic, same streets, same homeless people begging on the streets. I sighed wondering if the city would ever change. I doubted it. My rather depressing reverie was broken by Sora.

"There's someone you need to meet when we get home."

"Ok"

Home to us is a 3 bedroom apartment close to the park and the centre of New York. Sora and I have lived there for about a year and a half now. Our parents used to live here, but we moved and they kept the apartment in case one of us wanted to come and live here when we got a bit older. As it turns out we all moved here. Cloud went to live with his 'friend' Leon and Sora and I came here. Mom and Dad come down to visit us from Destiny Islands for every birthday, holiday and just because they feel like it every so often.

I used to hate living in New York, it was so loud and busy compared to Destiny but I soon got used to it. I made a few friends, Hayner, Pense, and Olette. They, like me, were from rich families so they knew what it was like to be hounded by paparazzi. We did everything together. Then being the bitch life is Olette got accepted into the most amazing art university in America, which happened to be over in Miami all the way over the other side of the country, Pense followed her, Hayner was the cause of my first attempt. After our little group broke up Hayner went haywire, drinking and partying every night, generally going out of control. Then one day I got a call from the hospital telling me that Hayner had gotten into a fight and some guy pulled a knife on him and that he was unstable and might not last the night. He didn't. I couldn't handle it so I jumped off the clock tower where we used to go to talk or eat sea salt ice cream or just hang out, all four of us, after Pense and Olette left Hayner and I didn't go up there much. I landed on the awning that they'd just put up and ended up in hospital with a broken leg, arm and a few ribs.

I started seeing Aerith again after almost 2 years of being pretty normal. She helped me through it all and I came out almost believing the grass was greener but then on the anniversary of Hayner's death I got smashed and ended up on the clock tower again. Being to distraught to think clearly I forgot about the awning that had been fixed after I jumped the first time. I jumped. I landed on it. I ended up in hospital in a coma. Lovely.

As we pulled up in front of our apartment building Sora and I heaved sighs after seeing the media storm outside the doors

"Are you ready for this?"  
"No more so than usual, bro" Sora smiled at me

"Let's do this thing"

We grinned at each other and raced through the photographers to the door which opened just enough for us to get through then slammed shut with barely a whisper.

"Nice to see you back with us, Mr Strife."

"Please, Mr Diego. It's Roxas"

"If you wish, Roxas"

"Thanks"

"Hello to you too, Sora"  
"Hey, Mr Diego"

"Does he know?" Sora shook his head at Mr Diego as they both shot me glances

"Not yet, though I'm sure he will soon." I wondered what the hell they were talking about but by the looks of things I doubted they would tell me.

"Come on, Roxas. Let's go home" I nodded and pressed the call button for the lift.

"It's nice to have you back, Roxas"

"It's good to be back, Mr Diego." The lift doors closed and we started to rise.  
"So what's this surprise you've been talking about?"

"Well Aerith has been talking to me about getting you something that you can always count on to be there, so I got you a pet." Red flags went up in my head

"What kind of pet?"

"I'm sure you'll love him."

"What kind of pet, Sora?"  
"He's so much fun to play with and to pat."

"Sora" He stopped babbling and looked at me "What kind of pet did you get?"  
He seemed to shrink away from me into the corner of the elevator

"A cat" My eyebrows shot up completely of their own accord.

"Oh, I thought it would be something completely different" Sora visibly brightened and started talking at his normal 5 zillion words a second.

As we arrived on our floor I took a deep breath, I hadn't realised how much I missed home. A loud thud turned my attention to the door opposite ours. Now the thing about our building is that there are only two apartments per floor one on each side of a rather short hallway.

There was another loud thud this time accompanied by a cry of "Demyx! What the hell!"

"Axel I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!"

"Damn you, Demyx Roveigas" I turned to Sora

"Who are they?"  
"Oh, them? They're our new neighbours"  
"No shit, Sora. What are their names?"  
"Oh, you could have been more specific I'm not a mind reader here. Geesh some people"

"Sora. What. Are. Their. Names?"

"Woah someone's cranky."  
"SORA!" Voices sounded form within the other apartment

"Dem, did you hear something?"  
"Yeah I think its Sora."  
"Doesn't sound like Sora."  
"Go have a look then." The door opened a crack  
A bright green eye peered out of the gap in the door. Roxas was stunned, how could an eye be that green?

The door shut quickly, then was thrown wide open.

"Sora!"  
"Hey, Axel." Axel looked Roxas up and down and Roxas felt the need to cover himself even though he was fully dressed

"And you might be" He purred practically on top of me. Did I mention he was tall, like really tall, I may be a few centimetres short of the norm but this guy was huge, and really skinny. Strong looking though. All the while Axel was grinning predatorily **(1) **down at me. I didn't like the whole I'm-sure-that-I'll-bed-you-by-the-end-of-this way he looked at me.

"Roxas Strife." I snapped. It just caused his grin to widen. Freakishly tall fool.

"Nice to meet you, Roxy" I scowled at him

"It's Roxas never ever Roxy unless you _want_ to be castrated"

"Oh, Roxy your words wound me so" I snatched the keys out of Sora's hand and opened the door.

"Whatever." I hauled Sora inside

"What the hell, Roxas?" I just shook my head and headed off to my room, seething that my return home had been ruined by some tall, green eyed, red headed freak. God that hair. It must be died.

I looked at my room. It was just how I left it, no dust, everything in its place. My amp and guitar in the corner, my laptop charging on my desk surrounded by sheets of music in semi-orderly piles.

"I kept it clean for you" I turned to face Sora

"You never gave up hope." A small smile graced his face  
"No"

"Thank you and . . . I'm sorry for what I did and the pain I must have caused you."  
"You're welcome and don't ever doubt that I'm always here for you little bro."  
"Thanks Sora" And just like that the atmosphere was broken by Sora's phone going off

"Hello?"

"Yeah, he's home." He turned to me  
"Riku says hello"

"Hello, Riku"

"Yeah he says hello too" Sora wandered back out into the lounge. I fell heavily on the bed trying to fight the oppressing weight of sleep. Apparently 2 months wasn't enough for my body. I rolled on my back and groaned as I shimmied out of my jeans and shoved them onto the floor.

As I settled under the covers I sighed at the comfort my old bed and room gave me. It was almost as thought they were acting as the security blanket I had in my closet somewhere.

The weight of sleep increased and this time I welcomed the darkness.


End file.
